Archive for the ‘Olympics’ Category

I know everywhere has been spruced up for the Oly/Paralympics – flags, flowers, bunting – the full works. I’ve been enjoying them hugely – and they’re not always where you’d expect them. Take The Pelton Arms (a pub I’m really liking just now) – all flowers and froth and fun – or the residents of Caradoc Street with their window boxes:

Of course there are the obvious central sites – I like the Mitre’s re-spruce (though I’ve not been in the ‘lounge’ yet – hope it’s good – I used to rather like that quiet little tiled conservatory at the back, which I assume is now loungeified)

and, obviously there’s Number 16 round the corner:

I even like the pubs that are cashing in on the Olympic craziness – I note that the old Gloucester Arms, renamed so many times in such a short time, is currently basking in all the gold medallist glory it’s been next door to:

I note that this is an obviously temporary sign, though as bad-pun-pub-names go I don’t dislike this. If it can’t be the Gloucester Arms, it might as well be a comedy name that actually means something.

The other place that’s managed a bit of a coup of course is the PilotThe Wheelchair Basketballer on the peninsula. I’d have shared the BBC story with you but if anyone can work out how to use the bloomin’ BBC London website they’re a better Phantom than I am…

I could go on, but I’d actually like to hear your favourite celebratory places in Greenwich just now. I’m going to leave you with mine – on a door next door to the Plume of Feathers in Park Vista – beautifully done, guys.

When I said this about the Shot Put installation Gifts From the Olympic Gods (using the spelling on the work’s title, CB ) outside Discover Greenwich, I knew it was part of a set, but for some reason I expected the pieces to be different.

But I was in Sloane Square yesterday (don’t ask…) and found its twin:

This made me actually look up the work, and I discovered you really can collect ‘em all (if you have absolutely nothing else in your life).

You can concentrate on looking at large metal-alike balls fallen from the sky (I like the broken concrete, as though Zeus himself threw it from Mt Olympus), or branch out to javelins or bows and arrows.

Or you could just sit and watch the tall ships go by of an evening. Honestly – I waited for bloomin’ hours in the midday sun for that flotilla a week or so ago (doesn’t it feel like forever?) and got nothing but sunstroke, when all I needed to do was sit with a pint at the Cutty Sark of a warm summer evening and watch the whole lot go by…

If you’re wondering what all those queues of people squinting at lamp posts are going to be doing over the next few days it will probably be trying to read the small print on this lot – the parking arrangements for Greenwich during the Olympics. Methers noticed this going up today, so presumably they’re going to be on a lamp post near you soon.

I guess it’s saving paper, just sticking up a few notices around the place, rather than putting leaflets through doors, but I reckon there’s going to be a few cases of eye-strain here – though of course you can visit www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/2012gamesparking for the full monty (and no, don’t get excited, that’s not Chris Roberts getting his kit off…)